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Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Work Catering #38: Thème français

A belated post because I've been on a mini holiday ^_^ Went to watch the LION KING :D it was soooo awesome!! Brought me back to my childhood~ with all the songs.. Hakuna matata!Anyways back to the baking! Last week a french reporter from France24 came to work to film a documentary about our head of Immunology Department (who is French).. something to do with French people coming to Aus for research! So I decided to have a French theme to my bakes =) and of course the first thing I thought of was MACARONS!

I wanted to experiment with colours and tried to make a French flag themed macaron! As you can see the colours are a bit off... the red could have been redder.. and the blue.. darker! But oh wells! I tried XD

You can find the recipe for the macarons here. I split the batter into 2 parts and added blue dye to one and red dye to the other. I think a gel dye rather than a liquid dye would probably work better. The macaron shells are sandwiched with white chocolate ganache which can be made by mixing 50ml thickened cream with 100g white chocolate in a bowl over a double boiler.

They may not look like white chocolate flavoured but they are sandwiched with white chocolate ganache~

Kind of uneven sizes :/

There are many fancy french pastries that I could choose from but decided to go for the safe option of Palmiers! Delicious puff pastry sprinkled with sugar, rolled up into a pretty heart shape and baked in the oven until caramelised! MMmm...

Just caramelised!

The only danger is not to bake them for too long or else the toffee will burn and become bitter.Cinnamon PalmiersRecipe adapted from Jessica Gavin

Circle of.... palmiers~~~

Ingredients1 cup caster sugar2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon3 sheets puff pastry, thawed1. Preheat oven to 200oC and line 2 large baking trays.2. Combine sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl.3. With a rolling pin, roll out the puff pastry sheet to create a slightly flatter and even surface. 4. Sprinkle surface of puff pastry with cinnamon sugar mixture until evenly coated. Using rolling pin, roll over the sugar surface to help mixture adhere to puff pastry.5. Flip pastry over and repeat step on the other side. 6. Fold sides of puff pastry towards the centre so they go halfway to the middle. Fold them again so the two folds meet exactly at the middle of the dough. Then fold 1 half over the other half to resemble a closed book.7. Chill dough for 15 minutes to allow the butter to harden slightly before cutting and prevent melting into the dough.8. Slice the dough into 1.5cm slices and place on lined baking tray. For a more heart shaped palmier, slightly separate the tops of the cookie dough to resemble bunny ears.

Little bunny ears

9. Bake for 12 minutes then turn over and bake for another 4 minutes or until lightly caramelised.10. Transfer palmiers to a cooling rack.

Different carmalisation :/

But deliciously crunchy and sugary :D

I'm having a break from catering the next two weeks... but will update you on some other bakes soon =) Till then, HAPPY BAKING!!!!